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Thursday night I popped out to walk to a Chinese takeout place on Elson Street. Craving Chinese food and, for some reason, a long walk. On the way back to the Walker safehouse I spotted Lefty, Flint, and a girl I'd never seen before coming towards me fast. A muffled gunshot from the alleyway. Lefty and the girl ducked in. Flint came by me, I followed him to help with whatever was up, and we ended up going to the opposite side of the alleyway. In the alleyway, there was a fight going on. Rina'd shot a vampire and was drinking its blood. The girl was crazy--and had gone crazy, too. Lefty and Flint turned into war machines and killed the vampire while the 3rd garou (she'd shifted), tried keeping Rina off of it. Rina = Batshit Insane. Lefty finally knocked her unconscious. I got asked to call Kavi. Kavi came over with a car, and we all piled in and took Rina back to the tenement.
I felt sick watching Rina slurping up vampire blood, decided that would probably be something a newish kin might yack to, so I tweaked myself with some Mind magic to make me puke. I think I managed to sell that to the crowd. I e-mailed Salem about the event, as that seemed like something that needed reporting to the acting Walker elder. I made sure to mention that the vampire had some kind of mind-controlling magic, had nearly gotten hold of Lefty's mind before I thwarted the attempt, and that Rina might have not had a choice in her actions. Salem wrote back about how vampire blood was incredibly addictive and playing double-agent is a dangerous game. (I wonder if that double-agent comment was directed at Rina--or me and Rina?)
Friday morning--the day Salem told me the garou were going after the BSDs. I headed off to the park to meditate and center myself at the node. As I was finishing up, Shelby dropped by and invited me to do some parkour with her over on the library's rooftop. (Different. So why not?) I got her to flip a penny into the fountain for luck and a wish and she did. Wouldn't it be great if it worked that way? Oh, right: sometimes it does. ;)
While parkouring, I got to talking about Izzy Sparks, and Shelby offered to take her a message for me. Val'd offered to take me over to meet Izzy, and Shelby said that was a bad idea. Rules and apparently Val's not friends with everyone out there, so.... Shelby then made a comment about Corax being unable to keep a secret, to which I made a crack about how stereotyping seemed alive and well in the animal kingdom. As soon as it came out of my mouth I was all "oh shit, I said that to a fucking werewolf." She was livid, but controlled it and asked how we should handle it. I apologized, told her I'd taken what I'm sure was a generalization on her part and turned it into some kind of absolutist, fascist-like statement--which was probably not representative of her true beliefs. I think both of us realized we'd kind of both made a mistake (but me more than her obviously). We managed to smooth things over, though. Shelby then suggested trying parkour out in the woods. I said I didn't feel comfortable doing that alone. She said she'd go with. I agreed to give it a shot at some point.
Damn, she's attractive. Reminds me a bit of Brigid, but more mature, less spirit-centric, and more playful overall. I wonder if I have a thing for Silver Fangs? Or if Silver Fang women just tend to be hotter?
About this time, a guy passing by on the street had overheard us talking about running in the woods. Shelby and him got into a discussion while I /looked/ at him. He had a magical coat--a lot of spirit magic in it--but appeared normal himself. I didn't say anything about the coat, obviously, as it'd have tipped off both him and Shelby. After some back and forth between he and Shelby, he basically introduced himself as being kin and to a tribe that normally didn't hang out in the city. We traded contact info. Shelby ran off to her appointment and I ran off to mine. Maybe I'll learn about Mr. Thomas Lee at a later date. For instance, later that same day 100 miles away. Ahhhh, but I'm jumping ahead.....
My appointment? It was with some BSDs. I picked Val up and shuttled her out 100 miles away to where the fight would be happening. She flew in the last few miles, met up with the Wookies, and off they went. She gave me a call and I started scryiing and following her in. Val did a great job luring one of them out, which one of the garou then began shooting at with a sniper rifle. There ended up being five BSDs--all of the group that;d been involved with the local incident and the compromising of my houseboat.
I jinxed one that was invisible and hiding in a tree. The BSD tried to shoot a garou right under him in the head, but his silver bullet didn't fire, so he threw the gun at the guy. That garou? Totally owes me his life, but he'll never know any better--or think Val saved his bacon. Then I had the guy fall out of the tree and onto the ground. (Very easy to modify the existing negative entropic forces surrounding BSDs, tweak the chaos they cause to others, and rechannel it back at the BSD as self-inflicted misfortune.) He was mauled like a steak thrown to a pack of starving animals.
I then focused in on another BSD that had gotten Salem in the face. (DAMN!) I reached out and rerouted the negative entropic forces back into the BSD itself, and specifically directed the misfortune towards its next attack at Salem. It missed completely on its next bite, chewed the ground instead, and Salem exploited the opportunity to bite its throat off while someone else attacked it from behind and the garou with the sniper rifle blew its head off. That guy had some serious bad karma pent up, and I was happy to facilitate the world's karmic retribution.
By now, the remaining BSDs were all but dead, so I went to examine the hawk spirit thing that Val was trying to speak with up on a rooftop.
Val and the hawk were screaming and posturing at one another: They weren't attacking one another, but they weren't being nice either. The hawk thing--which was radiating spirit energy and didn't seem to have the negative entropic resonance that the BSDs all did ("wyrm taint" the garou and Val call it)--suddenly made a break for it and tried to escape by flying away. Val gave chase and was throwing a MAJOR hissy fit. (Ravens hiss. It's really weird,) Clearly Val wasn't keen on having this hawk-spirit-thing escape, so I reached out, gathered up some nearby gravity waves, and re-channeled them into the escaping bird-thing. It was NOT happy as its weight suddenly tripled and it was forced to flounder-glide hard into the ground off away from the wolves in the forest. I kept the gravity waves running through the thing while it was on the ground, giving Val an edge should it decide to fight. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand a word of what Val and that thing were yelling at one another. The hawk-thing tried intimidation, but that didn't work. Then it turned invisible, but Val knows how to do that trick herself and thwarted it,. (Seems like /everyone/ is turning invisible these days. I should give it a try at some point. I can see two different ways of doing it, too.) Finally the two started talking. Well, Val started talking more and screaming less. (Hey, it's something.) She shifted back to human and spoke English, allowing me to listen in. The thing still seemed very unhappy and so when Val mentioned releasing the weight the hawk-thing was feeling, I took advantage and ended the effect, hoping that doing so might improve negotiations. It seemed to, a little bit.
Val was finally able to talk with it for a bit. I have no clue what was being said--up until Val shifted back to human. It did not seem happy. Val mentioned releasing the weight in a sentence, so I did when it sounded like Val would do so as a good faith gesture. That gave me the opportunity to scan the thing.
I'll be damned. The hawk was actually just a fox shifter in disguise! It wasn't Rajani, though. For one, it was male. Two, ... Part of its magical signature included a coat--the spirit-coat I'd seen earlier that day on a rather mundane-looking Mr. Lee! (Wonder why he didn't show up as a magical being on my earlier scan? Was that my fault, did he counter my magic, was he using a disguise, or was I distracted by Shelby's ass?) Val surrendered all the papers she'd gathered up from the Fox thing and gave them back. (This were-fox was also using paper magic, just like Rajani did. My earlier theory about Fox shifters being fond of paper-related magic seems to have garnered a 2nd supporting data point. Why paper, of all things? Its ties with knowledge?)
After Val arranged for there to be a future meeting, she flew off. I continued scrying, though. I saw the hawk-thing shift into a fox and also into kind of the war form that the garou and Val have. Werewolves are substantially scarier than werefoxes, which are only margianlly scarier than Coraxes--from a visual impression perspective. But that means nothing, really. And could be deceptive. The fox was very handsome-looking. Black and silver. Distinguished. The were-fox form, for some reason, reminded me a little bit of Disney's Robin Hood cartoon. I stopped scrying then. It seemed angry, frustrated, and a little violated even. Poor guy.
It's a good thing I quit, too. The Forces I was using earlier to bring the hawk-fox down was relatively potent magic. Light as a feather, stiff as a board? Well, I've gotten lighter. I could tell in the car by the way sitting in the driver's seat felt. I strapped myself in tight with the seat belt before I picked up Val. Told her I was tired and needed to focus on driving back to Saint Claire or we might not make it, so there wasn't much talking. I went non-stop for the 100-mile trip back to the city, dumped Val off at her house, told her to sleep and we'd talk later, and headed off to the tenement.
Then I realized that waltzing into a building full of werewolves, when you're a mage who has suddenly found out that he weighs only 22.5 pounds (I checked before bed that night), and you're wanting to keep the mage-thing quiet. I nearly got blown over by a sudden gust of wind when I got out of the car. I have so little mass right now that pushing open a door designed to not blow open in the wind would require that I pretty much throw myself at it. The wolves might not, in general, be the brightest light bulbs on the shelves, but someone is going to notice something like that.
I got back into my car, belted in, and headed off for my houseboat. I even left LOLcat in that 3rd floor apartment because I don't think I could carry him out without being noticed: plus there are cameras. On the way to my boat, I nearly went for a swim when a quick gust of cold wind came in off the mountains.
I'll be holed up in my houseboat here until this paradox wears off.
